David Clark, Baron Clark of Windermere
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|
Jack Cunningham | |
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Member of Parliament for South Shields | |
In office 3 May 1979 – 14 May 2001 | |
Preceded by | Arthur Blenkinsop |
Succeeded by | David Miliband |
Member of Parliament for Colne Valley | |
In office 18 June 1970 – 8 February 1974 | |
Preceded by | Richard Wainwright |
Succeeded by | Richard Wainwright |
Personal details | |
Born | Castle Douglas, United Kingdom | 19 October 1939
Political party | Labour |
Alma mater | Victoria University of Manchester University of Sheffield |
David George Clark, Baron Clark of Windermere
Education and early career
Clark was born in Castle Douglas, Scotland. He attended Bowness Elementary School and Windermere Grammar School in Cumbria. After leaving school, he worked as a forester and then as a laboratory assistant in a textile mill before becoming a student teacher in 1959.[citation needed]
Clark attended the
]He was a lecturer in Government and Administration at the University of Salford from 1965 to 1970 and a tutor at University of Manchester from 1967 to 1970.[citation needed]
Parliament
Clark joined the Labour Party in 1959 and the Co-operative Party two years later. He stood unsuccessfully for Manchester Withington at the 1966 General Election, being defeated by the incumbent Conservative, Sir Robert Cary.[citation needed]
He was first elected as a member of parliament (MP) for Colne Valley which he represented from 1970 to 1974. After losing in the February 1974 general election, he became a senior lecturer in Politics at Huddersfield Polytechnic (now the University of Huddersfield) until 1979 when he returned to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament for South Shields in Tyne and Wear which he held until he stood down at the 2001 general election.[citation needed]
Shadow cabinet
Clark was regularly elected to the
Government
Clark's long-standing position as a member of Labour's
Clark opposed moves to water down the freedom of information proposals from what had been proposed by Labour in
Heavily involved and interested in Bosnia, Clark was forced to apologise for not declaring a 1993 meeting with Radovan Karadžić in the Register of Members' Interests, as he "thought it had been a United Nations-funded trip".
Speaker's election
Two years later, on 23 October 2000, Clark stood for the job of
2001 general election and resignation
Clark sought reselection by the South Shields Constituency Labour Party to contest the 2001 general election for the seat. However, control of the constituency Party had swung in favour of a vocal group of critics, led by a faction within South Tyneside Council, who feared Clark actually intended to stand down when the General Election was called, thus enabling the Labour Party's National Executive Committee to parachute a favoured candidate into the Constituency[citation needed], historically a safe Labour seat. During the reselection contest Clark vigorously denied the claims and told the Shields Gazette newspaper advising he had every intention of contesting the general election[citation needed]. In the event, he won reselection thanks to the support of regional trade union barons.
When Prime Minister Tony Blair announced the date of the general election in 2001, Clark immediately stood down and the Labour Party NEC moved swiftly, New Labour rising star David Miliband was selected to fight the seat. Miliband, an Oxford graduate from London, was seen locally as a parachute candidate.[citation needed]
Within weeks of the Labour Party winning the 2001 general election, Clark was created a life peer on 2 July 2001 as Baron Clark of Windermere, of Windermere in the County of Cumbria[5] and now sits in the House of Lords. He was also appointed to the paid post of chairman of the Forestry Commission.
House of Lords
Clark's ongoing political interests include Bosnia, open spaces, hunting and bloodsports (to which he is opposed), defence and the environment.
He was awarded Freedom of the Borough of
Personal life
He married Christine Kirkby, in 1970 and they have one daughter and one son, Catherine and Thomas. He lives in
Honours
- He was sworn in as a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in 1997, giving him the honorific title "The Right Honourable" and after ennoblement the Post Nominal Letters"PC" for life.
- He was awarded the Freedom of the Town of South Shields in 1999.
- He was made a baron in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 2001 by Prime Minister Tony Blair, allowing him a seat in the House of Lords where he sits with the Labour Party.
- He took the title Baron Clark of Windermere.
- He served as a deputy lieutenant of the County of Cumbria from 2007 to 2014. This allowed him the post nominal letters "DL" for life.
- He was awarded an honorary fellowship in November 2009 of the University of Cumbria.[6]
References
- ^ House of Lords (2 July 2001). "Minutes of Proceedings". Archived from the original on 20 October 2006. Retrieved 20 April 2007.
- ^ "Dr David Clark (Hansard)". api.parliament.uk. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
- ^ Ashbrook, Kate (2 May 2013). "South Shields by-election: why the seat's tradition of public freedom is at stake". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 19 October 2018. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
- ^ White, Michael (29 November 1999). "Blair's plan for coalition revealed in stolen diary". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 17 October 2016. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
- ^ "No. 56265". The London Gazette. 5 July 2001. p. 7935.
- ^ "2009 | University of Cumbria". Archived from the original on 4 April 2018. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
External links
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by David Clark
- Biography on the Forestry Commission website Archived 12 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine